Two survivors of the Japan earthquake
have been pulled alive from the rubble, four days after the 9.0
magnitude tremor.
A 70-year-old woman was found alive in her house
in the town of Otsuchi in Iwate prefecture, public broadcaster NHK
reported. She was suffering from hypothermia but was not in a
life-threatening condition, it said, adding that she had been
hospitalised.
A man, whose age was not given, was rescued in the town of Ishimaki in Miyagi prefecture, the network said.
Miyagi was particularly badly hit by the quake and the subsequent
tsunami that swept away whole towns and villages. Emergency personnel
were reported to have found 2,000 bodies in the prefecture on Monday.
The rare rescues came just a day after a four-month-old girl was
plucked - apparently uninjured - from the rubble of the town of
Ishinomaki, also in Miyagi.
Emergency workers had rescued 15,000 people and about 550,000 had
been evacuated to about 2,600 shelters across six prefectures by Monday,
Kyodo News reported.
However, local officials are estimated to have lost contact with about 30,000 people.
Roads and rail, power and ports have been crippled across much of the
northeast of Japan's Honshu island, hampering relief efforts.
The government has mobilised 100,000 soldiers to deliver food, water and fuel and around 70 countries have offered assistance.
"It is the elderly who have been hit the hardest," said Patrick
Fuller of the International Federation of Red Cross, in a memo written
from Ishinomaki.
"The tsunami engulfed half the town and many lie shivering
uncontrollably under blankets. They are suffering from hypothermia
having been stranded in their homes without water or electricity."
The Japanese Red Cross has deployed about 90 medical teams who are
trying to provide the basics in care for 430,000 in remote towns spread
along the coast.